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cultural diversity in healthcare
cultural considerations in healthcare
cultural considerations in healthcare
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Every culture has its own views of health care, diseases, and medical interventions. The way people of a given culture view health care affects how they handle themselves when they fall ill. For instance, the Asian culture believes that illnesses are caused by supernatural phenomena, which should be diagnosed and treated by means of spiritual healing or traditional herbs. Physicians and other medical practitioners should try to understand the cultural beliefs of their patients to handle them appropriately.
Heredity, culture, and environment can have a significant impact on the way a patient behaves in the doctor’s office or at the hospital. Heredity refers to the way particular traits are passed from parents to their children through the genes that the latter inherit from the former. It has been proven that some diseases such as cancer and diabetes can be inherited through gene composition. Some societies believe that inherited diseases cannot be treated in hospitals, a belief that affects the degree of their compliance with the required medical interventions (Galanti, 2008).
Culture, just like heredity, can also affect the way a patient behaves in a medical office. Various cultures have different perspectives on what causes illness and how the sick should go about the treatment process. For instance, Asians believe that illnesses stem from some supernatural phenomena and only prayers or other mystical interventions can cure them. Consequently, a patient from the Asian culture is unlikely to comply with medical treatment involving modern drugs and technologies.
The environment where an individual lives can also affect his behavior when he goes to seek health care services. There are some societies where people do not believe in ...
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...o should be involved in the treatment process. Western cultures such as those in the United States and the United Kingdom, which believe illnesses are caused by natural and scientific phenomena, promote the use of specialized medical interventions and advanced therapeutic technology to diagnose and treat diseases. Other cultures such as the Asians believe illnesses are caused by supernatural phenomena and advocate for spiritual interventions as one of the ways of treating sicknesses. This paper describes how culture can influence health beliefs and patient compliance by focusing on the Asian culture.
Works Cited
Galanti, G. (2008). Caring for patients from different cultures. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.
Muto, T., Nakahara, T., & Nam, E. W. (2010). Asian perspectives and evidence on health promotion and education. New York, NY: Springer.
... cultural barriers to care. Journal of General Internal Medicine, 18(1), 44-52. Retrieved from http://proxy.samuelmerritt.edu:2106/pmc/articles/PMC1494812/
This means that the connection between mind, body and spirit mental cures are important. This healthcare belief can interfere with treatment in the case of an emergency, when holistic care can only do so much for a person. The people in this culture usually delay seeking medical advice and attention and often turn towards alternative forms of medicine. Sometimes they can even return to their original home to seek traditional forms of treatment. Delaying treatment and diagnosis can lead to chronic and more serious illnesses. The lack of education and knowledge about healthcare and preventative measures for some diseases, such as regular checkups and the need for medication can impair the journey to better
Jean Giddens (2013) defines culture as “a pattern of shared attitudes, beliefs, self-definitions, norms, roles, and values that can occur among those who speak a particular language, or live in a defined geographical region.” (Giddens, 2013). A person’s culture influences every aspect that person’s life. Beliefs affected by culture include how someone interacts within the family, how to raise children, the types of foods eaten, the style of clothes chosen, which religion is practiced, and the style of communication (including verbal, and body language, slang used etc.) (Giddens, 2013). In addition to these beliefs, health care practices are also affected by culture. The cause
Today when people move across continents with the help of technology their culture and heritage moves along with them. Almost each and every continent is populated with people from different nations who have diverse traditions and cultures. Thus knowledge of health traditions and culture plays a vital role in nursing. People from different cultures have a unique view on health and illness. Culture-specific care is a vital skill to the modern nurse, as the United States continues to consist of many immigrants who have become assimilated into one culture. I interviewed three families of different cultures: - Indian (my culture), Hispanic and Chinese. Let us see the differences in health traditions between these cultures.
In the book The Spirit Catches you and you Fall Down, ethnocentrism can also be seen. Throughout the book the family and the doctors have different ideas of medicine/healing techniques are often disagreed on. It’s important for the doctor to see that biomedicine has its own intentions of saving patient through standard procedures and beliefs. Understanding those terms will shed some light on the culture of the patient, which has their own intentions, beliefs, and rules as well. Breaking down ethnocentrism to find an agreement is a good goal to accomplish in order have successful prognosis and healing. In addition, shedding the ethnocentrism will allow the doctors to see the different cultural beliefs and not judge right away. Although, some cultural remedies may not always work, it’s wrong for people to have the mindset of ethnocentrism without even considering their beliefs first.
Deborah Lupton, 2012. Medicine as Culture: Illness, Disease and the Body. Third Edition Edition. SAGE publication Ltd.
This includes their family, religion, race, ethnicity, and kinship. All of these play a role in the person’s cultural behavior. These are the things that are acquired or not genetically given. Communication refers to verbal and nonverbal forms of interacting. This includes spoken, written, gestures, body language, space, and facial expressions. The last aspect is environmental control. Understanding different cultures view on when they seek health care related to their environmental control is important. Different cultures seek health care based on their culture’s views of illness and disease, their medical practices, and their use of folk medicine (Giger,
This book addresses one of the common characteristics, and challenges, of health care today: the need to achieve a working knowledge of as many cultures as possible in health care. The Hmong population of Merced, California addresses the collision between Western medicine and holistic healing traditions of the Hmong immigrants, which plays out a common dilemma in western medical centers: the need to integrate modern western medicinal remedies with aspects of cultural that are good for the well-being of the patient, and the belief of the patient’s ability to recuperate. What we see is a clash, or lack of integration in the example of the story thereof. Lia, a Hmong child with a rare form of epilepsy, must enter the western hospital instead of the Laotian forest. In the forest she would seek out herbs to remedy the problems that beset her, but in the west she is forced to enter the western medical hospital without access to those remedies, which provided not only physical but spiritual comfort to those members of the Hmong culture. The herbs that are supposed to fix her spirit in the forest are not available in the western hospital. The Merced County hospital system clashes with Hmong animist traditions.
Through showing the different definitions of health, the authors explain how those different understandings affect patterns of behavior on health depend on different cultures. In addition, an analysis of the models of health demonstrates even western medical approaches to health have different cognitions, same as the Indigenous health beliefs. The most remarkable aspect is a balance, a corresponding core element in most cultures which is an important consideration in Indigenous health as well. From an Indigenous perspective, health is considered as being linked, and keeping the connection is a priority to preserve their health. Consequently, health is a very much culturally determined. Health practitioners should anticipate and respect the cultural differences when they encounter a patient from various cultures. In particular, this article is good to understand why the Indigenous health beliefs are not that different than western medicine views using appropriate examples and comparative composition, even though the implementation the authors indicated is a bit abstract, not
In the clinical setting, nurses are believed to spend the most time with patients. This involves regularly dealing with people coming from different ethnicities and with different cultural practices and beliefs (Brown & Edwards, 2012). Given this cultural diversity, every patient may have his/her own cultural beliefs and practices regarding his/her own health and its treatment which can be similar or different to those ...
In the article “Body Ritual among the Nacirema” By Horace Miner, there are a few points that he is trying to put across. Firstly, it is sometimes difficult to collect accurate information about a culture when you do not belong to it. Not everything will be explained in great detail, which forces a person to make assumptions about what they are being shown or what they are hearing. Secondly, Americans seem to always believe everything that they are told from doctors because they have been highly respected for many generations and people learn from when they are very young that when they are sick, they must go see the doctor to feel well again. Lastly, People always believe that they cannot heal without medicine because doctors have been making people believe that medicine is the key to healing for many years.
An individual’s culture and belief may significantly impact the type of services they require. In addition, it may affect the time, place, and method in the delivery of health care
As nurses entering the medical field understanding the culture of our patients is crucial to proper care. Each culture has their own set of beliefs and values that are shared among groups of people which influences personality, language, lifestyles, house hold, level modesty, social standings, foods, health treatment and identity. Culture affects how people view health and illness; dictating when, where and what type of medical treatment they will receive and who will be their care provider.
Understanding cultural differences not only improves the effectiveness of the treatment the patient receives, it is also help the nurse to prevent negliency of care. It is impostant to maintain a curiosity about each patient no matter how much we know abouth that person's culture.
... different language than Chinese. By taking the time to educate myself about my client’s culture, I can provide more thorough care for my client. Patient care can be run much more smoothly if the nurse is educated about the client’s preferences. The patient might not be making eye contact because she believes it is disrespectful. She may also be more private and does not like to disclose personal information. Culture plays a big role in the type of care that a patient receives. It determines how comfortable a patient is with certain things, which can speed up their healing process. There are many things to cultural considerations when caring for a patient. This includes their language, religion, family, and the client’s values. A nurse must consider all of the patient’s preferences and beliefs in order to provide their client with the best culturally competent care.